Smokers, prepare yourselves for a witch hunt.
Like liquor during prohibition or Communism during the McCarthy era, smoking bans have signified that the time has come again for the general public to rise up to condemn a common practice, persecute those who engage in it and ostracize anyone whose views differ from their own. Yes, that's right, if you smoke, be prepared to be made a second-class citizen by your fellow Americans.
I'm not speaking particularly of the rules on campus concerning how close one can stand to the doors while smoking or the fact that entire cities want to ban smoking of any kind anywhere in the city. I'm not talking about how people consider themselves not only right but also justified when they publicly insult or humiliate someone who is smoking.
I'm not even talking about the fact that smokers already are, in many ways, second-class citizens, standing out in the cold - 30 feet from the doors, of course - to indulge in their secret pleasure while trying to avoid the annoyed stares and vicious comments of anyone they might happen to offend - since, being 30 feet from the doors, they will be either on the sidewalk or in the road.
These things do not make me shiver in my boots; but the sum of their parts does.
Remember the mass panic that ensued after the Columbine shootings? Remember how paranoid people got, how quickly they leapt to persecute people wearing trench coats? Remember how they wanted to ban violent movies and video games? This is the same, only it won't stop because people won't stop smoking, and the people who hate it will hate it more with each passing day.
Take this interesting new twist, for example: According to a Thursday Associated Press article, a new study shows that on-screen smoking leads many teenagers to start smoking themselves. As a result, attorneys general from 32 states want Hollywood to put an anti-smoking message on all DVDs that contain scenes of smoking.
This is not only ridiculous, it is offensive, insulting and abusive. You don't see these same people clamoring for anti-drinking ads in every movie which features drinking.
Even the anti-drug campaign, with its wild-eyed screaming maniac representatives, still hasn't managed to slap an anti-drug message on every single movie to roll out of Hollywood.
This is persecution, pure and simple.
In the next 10 years, if the wild-eyed maniacs have their way, it will be socially and economically demeaning for anyone to even be rumored to be a smoker - that is, if they don't make it flat-out illegal in our country.
It will be McCarthyism all over again. Good citizens will be encouraged to report local smokers to the authorities. Smokers may have their taxes increased, heavy fines levied on them or the right to vote taken away. I am not making this up.
It has become socially acceptable and morally sound for people to persecute, insult and take away the rights of people who smoke, and if it continues, I assure you we will see another prohibition in this country within a decade.
You have been warned.
Write to Jonathan at tenement_cellar@msn.com
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